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istock / gdagys Blog

In 2020, Asia-Pacific saw the collision of climate extremes and COVID-19 transmission create cascading disasters with wide-ranging impacts on sectors, economies, and populations.

The year…

istockphoto / tongpatong Op-ed

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated the exclusion faced by the 690 million persons living with disabilities in the Asia-Pacific region. In initial responses to the pandemic, there was a…

iStock / suc Blog

Asif Ali (name changed) and his wife live with three children in a rural township bordering India and Bangladesh. Asif lost his job as a mechanic when the COVID-19 lockdown forced the closure of a…

Unsplash/Piyush Priyank Blog

COVID-19 challenges the very fabric of human possibilities, survival and needs while amplifying the impacts of any ongoing crisis, especially the one faced currently by South Asia. Against a backdrop…

Unsplash / Lynda Hinton Blog

After decades of impressive growth, for the first time, Southeast Asia is experiencing a drop in measured human development. The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic will likely take months…

Unsplash/Big Dodzy Op-ed

As lockdowns ease in countries across Asia and the Pacific in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, one thing is clear—a return to business as usual is unimaginable in a region that was already off…

Unsplash / Milind Ruparel Blog

The last few months have seen the collisions of COVID-19 with climate extremes. Its impact is potentially inter-generational where poverty, disaster risks and environmental degradation converge,…

Unsplash / Nicolas Weldingh Op-ed

Developing countries of Asia and the Pacific are experiencing unbalanced tolls of the COVID-19 pandemic. Grim milestones in infections and deaths have left countless devastated. Yet, we must look at…

Pixabay / Manuel Dario Fuentes Hernandez Blog

“We have a rare and short window of opportunity to rebuild our world for the better”
- António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General

Not undermining the challenges posed by COVID-19, there…

Shutterstock / Richard Whitcombe Blog

Last week saw a ‘crisis on top of a crisis’ in South Asia – the unprecedented impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region was followed by the most powerful cyclone to strike India and Bangladesh…